


Tonight I'm In the Hands of Fate

by micehell



Category: CSI: NY
Genre: Drama, Gen, Pre-Series, hints of a less than happy homelife
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-01-06
Updated: 2008-01-06
Packaged: 2017-11-12 02:26:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,676
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/485665
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/micehell/pseuds/micehell
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The car had been a better dream than a reality.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tonight I'm In the Hands of Fate

Like most things in Danny Messer's life, the car had been a better dream than it was a reality.

It had started on his fifteenth birthday with a card his mother had slipped him, away from his father's eye. There had only been two wrinkled twenties inside, but it had seemed like a fortune then. He'd hidden it amidst his boyhood treasures, in an old cigar box he kept stashed beneath the loose floorboard under his bed, safe from Louis' weekly _I just_ borrowed _it, D, for a pack of cigarettes, but I'll pay you back next week_ visits.

But his dream was going to cost far more than forty dollars, and he knew better than to ask his old man to help, so he worked every odd job he could find. Hauling boxes at his uncle's canopy factory. Doing deliveries for Sal's Deli on the corner, and not asking too many questions about what was in the bags besides a sandwich and pickle. Hell, even walking Mrs. Ferber's dog, though it meant sitting on Mrs. Ferber's couch afterwards, drinking the lemonade she made just for him, her older-even-than-his-mother's leg pushed up too close to Danny's as she apologized for 'accidentally' touching his ass, even while sighing that she remembered when Mr. Ferber's had felt like that.

The money came trickling in, and he counted it anxiously, a mental tally always in his head, marking the days until he could get his prize.

It was nearly a year later, his birthday just a week away, when he finally handed the thousand dollars to his mother. She slipped it in her pocket, safe from prying eyes, and they walked together to Mr. Lawson's house down the block, both of them eyeing the car as they passed it. It was black and glossy, smooth and bad-ass, and everything Danny had worked for the last year.

His mother paused for a moment, and said, "I don't know, Danny. Those four headlights kind of make it look… evil," and he had to work hard to ignore her, pushing away the flashes he kept getting of the movie they'd watched last week. He wanted to curse her and Stephen King both at that moment, but he just kept his eye on the grille, with GTO spelled out across it in shiny chrome, and reminded himself that it looked nothing like a Fury.

Jogging ahead before she could make any more comments, Danny knocked on the door, stepping aside when the door opened and his mother smiled wide for Mr. Lawson.

He left the business details to her. He couldn't legally sign anything yet, anyway, and though he hated it, he knew that they were only getting the car so cheaply because Mr. Lawson looked at his mother the same way that Mrs. Ferber looked at him. For the last year, Danny had anxiously eyed the car, always sure that it would be gone one day, Mr. Lawson's promise to sell it to them forgotten, but between the lure of his mother's smile and the extra money Danny was almost positive she'd been slipping him, it was finally his. Well, theirs, but it was close enough.

She let him drive it first, a slow cruise down the street that just begged for everyone to look at him, but then she kicked him over to the passenger side, smiling as she took drove them over the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge onto Staten Island. It didn't even seem like it could be part of the city, almost empty and quiet, but only until they roared through, the Tri-Power engine on the '66 sounding like a predator among suburban prey.

It was all good, both of them laughing, so worth every moment he'd had to work for it, every penny they'd saved. She kissed his forehead, her laugh-quickened breath ruffling his hair, and he didn't even push her away, not needing to pretend to be too old for his mother's kisses when it was just them and the car.

The light was fading, their laughter with it, when they finally crossed the bridge again.

His father reacted pretty much like they'd expected. His mother handled that, too, sending Danny to his room, but he could hear them even hours later, her voice only audible from time to time, too soft and weary to carry over his father's.

In the end she won, though it was an uneasy truce at best. Danny got to keep the car, but he learned to park it in the back yard, away from his father's baleful eye, and his mother made sure to hide their insurance bill away, and neither of them took it out for long, always back home when they were expected.

His mother didn't seem to mind the extra trouble, though, spending long hours with Danny under the hood, the bright actinic light they'd strung up to the dying elm tree in back making both of them squint a little behind their glasses as they pored over shop manuals, trying to teach themselves the mysteries of the internal combustion engine, and not getting far. His father could have helped, but he refused to have anything to do with it, pretending the car didn't exist, and Louis was just about as bad as they were, though he did teach them how to siphon gas with a piece of old hose without getting a mouthful of fuel. It came in helpful when money was tight, and his father's K-car was sitting right there.

That summer, while school was out and his father was busy with a job that he didn't name names on, she packed him and Louis into the car -- Louis protesting all the way that he was too old for summer breaks -- and they took a road trip upstate to see the Lakes, something she'd always wanted to do. They took their time, even Danny's constant impatience lulled by the warm air howling through the open windows as they ran down the highway.

Insisting that it was their car, Danny and his mother took turns with the radio, the speedometer counting out the beat as _Angie_ gave way to _Behind the Wheel_. But Louis bitched until they caved, giving him a turn, and he and Danny laughed helplessly in the backseat as their mother sang along to _Ain't We Funkin' Now_.

It was perfect, the dream he'd had, why he'd saved all that money. It was a freedom he'd always imagined.

He never remembered the accident. He only could say for sure he was driving because he woke up trapped behind the wheel. Through vision blurrier than even the loss of his glasses could explain, he could see his mother in the passenger seat, hanging over him. He tried to reach up to her, but he never made it before the world faded again.

The account his mother and Louis gave to the police said a semi swerved, running them off the road, never even slowing to see if they needed help. Louis' door had come open, throwing him out without a scratch, but he'd been unable to get the others out. He'd flagged a car down, hitching into the nearest town to send back the EMTs and an ambulance.

They told the same story to Danny, in the hospital with a badly broken leg, a worse concussion. He mostly believed them, even though their eyes slid away from him when they spoke, each taking a turn with the story, their words strangely similar.

Danny's dreams told another story. Disjointed images of a car beside them, Louis in the passenger seat, arguing with someone behind the wheel. His mother shouting. His own voice bitter as he said, _He can't even let us have this_. They seemed real, the dreams, but he knew better than to trust them, because he also sometimes saw Mr. Lawson in the other car, Mrs. Ferber's hand on Danny's leg as he struggled to avoid him. It was the day after he dreamed that MacGyver was in the car with him, giving him driving tips, that he stopped trying to remember.

The car was a complete loss, but he still had to bite his tongue when his mother said he should be thankful, it could have been him. He was thankful, really, but it didn't make the loss less painful.

After the cast came off, Louis, in a fit of uncharacteristic helpfulness, found him another car he could afford, an Impala Danny dubbed the Pimpmobile. He secretly liked it, thinking he looked pretty cool in it, and he _loved_ the looks he was getting from some of the girls in the neighborhood. Even Louis' friends thought it was cool, and while Danny had always been leery of that crowd, he wasn't immune to the appeal of their acceptance, even limited as it was.

It wasn't until months later that he realized his mother never drove in it with him. That the nights spent under the hood, laughing at their collective lack of mechanical ability, were gone.

He asked her to drive over to Staten Island with him again, but she just laughed and told him she was busy. The next time she told him she had a headache. The time after that, when he asked if she was afraid to drive with him anymore, she just shook her head and told him he'd always had such an active imagination. Looking at his father, Danny carefully didn't say that it wasn't his imagination that she never left home anymore except to go shopping, but he didn't ask again after that.

He filled the extra time she'd left him hanging out with Louis, but that ended with another road trip gone wrong, and he never did get to see Atlantic City. It was then that Danny decided that having a car was better in theory than in practice. So he sold the Pimpmobile, bought himself a metro card, and stashed the rest of the money in the old cigar box.

And he found a different dream.

/story

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: Songs first, I guess. The title's from _Behind the Wheel_ by Depeche Mode, and the other two songs, _Angie_ and _Ain't We Funkin' Now_ , are by The Rolling Stones and Grandmaster Flash respectively. I made Danny like Depeche Mode 'cause in canon he likes Coldplay -- who I hate, oi! -- and I figured that those two bands at least had some elements in common, and, since I actually like Depeche Mode, I was willing to give him some of my superior musical taste. :P
> 
> As to the car, well, once you realize that Danny reminds me of Ray from _Due South_ , some of you might recognize the GTO in this story. ;) I couldn't help it, especially as I love Ray's car, though I think I might have changed the year, 'cause I think Ray has a '67. However, as I wanted this one to have the Tri-Power engine, it had to be a '66... and as I'm the only one that cares, it didn't really matter. ;) The Pimpmobile is my description of the car that Danny's driving in RSRD. I said it was an Impala, but I'm just making that up. Classic cars I can do, but I have no idea what that thing was. *snicker*


End file.
